Tag feed device



Sept. 30, 1969 c. A. PARKER TAG FEED DEVICE 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed June 7. 1966 SePt- 30, 1969 c. A. PARKER 3,469,754

TAG FEED DEVICE Filed June 7, 1966 4 Sheets-Sheet FICB /A/VEA/TOR CHARLES A. PAR/(ER Mw l vvAGENT Sept 30, 1969 c. A. PARKER 3,469,754

TAG 'FEED DEVICE Filed June '7. 1966 4 Sheets-Sheet 3 /IVI/ENTOR CHARLES A. PAR/(ER By AGE/V7 TAG 'FEED DEVICE Filed June 7. 1966 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 FIG--6 /A/VE/VTOR CHARLES A. PARKER United States Patent 3,469,754 TAG FEED DEVICE Charles A. Parker, East Orange, NJ., assigner to Litton Business Systems, Inc., a corporation of New York Filed June 7, 1966, Ser. No. 555,887 Int. Cl. G0311 1/22; B26d 5/20 U.S. Cl. 226-68 7 Claims ABSTRACT F THE DISCLSURE A device for feeding edge notched tags in a predetermined direction including a pair of feed bars adapted for movement transversely to said predetermined direction, and in said predetermined direction; with each of said feed bars carrying one or more rock pawls each formed with a pair of spaced feed teeth. Movement of the feed bars towards the tag results in engagement of either a tooth on a rock pawl with the edges of a notch in the tag or with the edge of the tag itself. The teeth on the rack pawls are so spaced that if one tooth strikes an edge of the tag the pawl will be rocked so that the other tooth enters a notch. If the tooth initially enters a notch then the pawl does not rock. Subsequent movement of the bars in the predetermined direction results in tag feed.

The present invention relates generally to improvements in machines adapted to the printing and perforating of information upon small tags, for example, small price tags such as those used in the apparel industry for keeping inventory records, billing, recording, merchandising control, accounting and similar procedures. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in tag feeding mechanisms therefor, of the character such as that disclosed in Reissue Patent No. 24,547, dated Oct. 7, 1958, from an original U.S. Patent 2,708,873, issued May 24, 1955 t0 Karl I. Braun, wherein tags of a single part width are fed either as individual tags or as a continuous web or strip of tags.

Customarily, the corners of each tag are cut olf, thereby forming spaced notches to enable a continuous web or strip of tags to be intermittently and successively fed through the machine by the tag feeding mechanism. Where the tags are supplied in continuous strip or web form they are made up of individual tag parts severed from one another except for narrow connecting lands indicated at t, FIG. l. Each tag may be supplied with an attaching string and preprinted with any desired data such as a company name, size, price and article identification, as well as other information which may be in the form of coded perforations.

In addition to the above information, it may be desired in certain instances to include also additional information, such as the conditions of manufacture, warranty and directions for handling and care of an article. This requires tags of a multiple width to the single part tag normally used, whereby to provide space for said conditional information. To attempt feeding said multiple width tag by the presently known single width tag feed devices would ordinarly require, in addition to the usual feed notches separated each tag, that intermediate feed notches of the character above described be cut Within the feeding edges of the multiple part tags. However, this has been found to be objectionable both as to appearance and because such notches are frequently apt to be mistaken for a tearotf indication.

An object of the present invention therefore provides improved tag feed means whereby tags having multiple part widths to the usual single part width tags may now be advanced by the same feed stroke mechanism heretofore adapted to the advance of such single part width tags.

ice

As another object, the invention provides tag feed means having a uniform feed stroke adapted for advancing single part tags of different Widths.

As a further object, the invention provides tag advancing means adapted for advancing both single part width tags or tags which are a multiple width of said single part Width tags.

Another object of the invention is the provision of tag feed means wherein the usual feed control indicia heretofore required at the line distinguishing single width tags from multiple width tags is not now required.

Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a plan view of the feed means for advancing tags of a given width and tags which may be a multiple of said width;

FIG. 2 is a face view showing a strip or web of single part tags;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the tag feeding means and driving means therefor;

FIG. 4 is a right side elevational view with the righthand side framing of the machine broken away to show the drive mechanism;

FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken on line 5--5 of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the counter mechanism and its relation with the tag cut-olf mechanism.

FIG. 7 is an exploded perspective view of one counter dial assembly.

For feeding either single width tags T or multiple width tags T through the machine a pair of feeding bars 113 and 114 (FIGS. 1 and 3) are moved toward and from each other fore and aft of the machine and reciprocated in unison transversely of the machine, in the manner of the devices of the above patent. The tag feeding bars 113 and 114 are provided with stub shafts 117 `and 118 respectively. The stub shafts 117 slidably fit within slots in the upper end of a pair of levers 119 and 120- which levers are pivotally supported at their lower end by a cross shaft 121 mounted in the side frames 2 and 3 of the machines. Similarly, the stub shafts 118 slidably tit within slots in the upper end of a second pair of levers 122 and 123, which are fast upon a suitably journaled transverse shaft 124. A link 125 pivotally connected at one end to lever 119, above the pivot shaft 121, and pivotally connected at its other end to lever 122 below the pivot shaft 124, serves to move the feeding bars 113, 114 toward and from each other when levers 119, 120, 122 and 123 are rocked on their respective pivot shafts 121-124. The means for rocking the levers 119, 120 and 122, 123 cornprises a roller 126 rotatably mounted near the lower end of lever 119 and held by a spring 128 against the periphery of cam 127 fast on the main shaft 97 operated by suitable clutch means 159 (FIG. 4) and electric motor M.

In lieu of the claw like projections provided upon the feed bars of the reference patent, for the instant invention there is mounted upon each of the bars 113, 114 (FIG. l) a series of pivot studs 98, 99 respectively, the studs 98 being spaced opposite and disposed in parallel series relative to studs 99. Upon each stud 9S, 99 is pivotally mounted a corresponding rock pawl provided at each end with an upwardly extending tooth 101, 102, as shown in FIG. 1. Each pawl 98, 99 is provided with a hair spring 103 biasing the respective pawls so that the corresponding rearward or rightward tooth 102 is held in engagement with a related one of a series of recesses 104 formed on the inner edges of each of the bars 113, 114. Thus the forward or leftward tooth 101 of each pawl 100 will be positioned beyond said inner edges 105 and during the above movement of bars 113, 114 toward each other will act to engage the feeding edges of any tags T or T inserted therebetween whereby to be subsequently advanced by a tag feeding operation, as in the manner hereinafter to be described.

In addition to the feeding bars 113, 114 being moved longitudinally of the machine for tag engagement as just described, they are also simultaneously moved transversely of the machine for feeding the tags, by the following mechanism. A cam 129 (FIG. 3) fast on main shaft 97, adjacent cam 127, drives a roller 130 which is rotatably carried by the lower end of gear segment 131. This segment is fast on one end of a longitudinal shaft 132 and its gear teeth are in permanent sliding mesh with a rack 133 fixed to the feeding bar l113. A second gear segment 134, fast on the opposite end of shaft 132, has teeth which are in permanent sliding mesh with la rack 135 fixed to the feeding bar 114.

Besides the fore and aft and side to side motion of bars 113 and 114, just described, they have a vthird movement in an up and down direction during tag feeding. This latter movement is for the purpose of raising the tags against suitable cut-off punches 199 (FIGS. l and 6) and severing the tags at the connecting lands t, either as single part tags, double part tags, triple part tags or quadruple part tags in accordance with the setting of a suitable manual control knob 165 (FIG. 6). Said up and down movement is effected, in the operation of well known punch devices, by a pair of left and right vertical slide levers 151 (FIG. 4) operated by related rock levers 153 pivotally mounted upon studs 9 projecting inwardly from the side plates 2 and 3 respectively. The slides 151 are positively raised and lowered during each revolution of main shaft 97 by means of related complemental cams 155 cooperating with rollers 154 on the bifurcated ends of rock levers 153, all as in the manner more fully set forth in the above reissue Patent No. 24,547, to which reference is made for details of structure and operation not deemed necessary to be described herein. Whenever possible, numbers of corresponding parts of said patent to the present disclosure are used herein.

Main shaft 97 is rotatably journaled in suitable bearings carried by the main side plates 2 and 3 respectively, and is driven by electric motor M through a suitable worm 157, worm gear 158 and the clutch 159 of any conventional design. The worm is keyed to motor shaft 160 and the worm gear is fixed `with a part of the clutch 159 and free on main shaft 97. The construction is such that when a starting button 161 is pushed, a bell crank 162 is caused to rock clockwise upon its pivot 163 to lower link 164 thus engaging the clutch 159 to operatively connect motor M with main shaft 97.

Pivotally mounted at 7 to the side frame 3 is a rock lever 209 having mounted upon the free end thereof a plate 8 (see also FIG. 5). forming the upper guide surface of a tag entering throat means. The lower guide surface forming said throat includes a plate member 10 hinged at 11 to a slide 12, secured for vertical adjustment on frame 3 by suitable screw means 13. A. tension spring 14 urges plate 10 clockwise (FIG. 5) against an offset finger 15 of the rock lever 209. The entering end of la strip of tags T is fed between plates 8 and 10 until stopped by engagement thereof with the forward teeth 101 (FIG. 1) of the first pair of feed pawls 100, earlier described. Lever 209 is held in its lowered position by a pivoted latch 210, and a link 211 has its forward end pivotally connected to the upper end of said latch 210, and its rearward end pivotally connected with one arm of a bell crank 212 pivotally mounted upon a cam shaft 177 (FIG. 6).

As fully set forth in the reference patent a series of four cams 181, 182, 183 and 184 having twelve, six, four and three notches respectively on the periphery thereof lare pivoted on shaft 177 to be indexed step by step by a counting finger 179 whereby to control the operations of well-known counter dials 166 for effecting merely single counts relative to every one cycle, two cycle, three cycle or four cycles of machine operations in accordance with the setting of said control dial knob 165. Thus the counter mechanism is designed to control the number of tags to be printed and perforated with information whether these tags are single part tags, double part tags, triple part tags or quadruple part tags. When counting dials 166 are set in their zero position, the toothed end of corresponding levers 172 are engaged `with the notches 170 in related discs 168 on each said dials and said levers are made rigid with one another to rock in unison upon a shaft 173 projecting inwardly from the right-hand side plate. The right hand or units order lever 172 has a downwardly and rearwardly projecting arm 174, the free end of which is bifurcated to receive a stud 175, carried by a two armed lever 176, the latter being pivotally mounted upon cam shaft 177 also carried by the right-hand side plate. The lower arm of lever 176 has an inwardly projecting pin 178 which serves to engage and disengage the free end of counting lever 179, with a feeding ratchet wheel 180 fast with the series of cams ISI-184. Lever 179 is held against pin 178 by a spring 109. It may now be pointed out that when all the counting dials 166 are set at zero, the indexing end of lever 179 is held out of engagement with ratchet wheel 180 by pin 178, and that when any one or all of the dials 166 are moved out of zero position, levers 172 will be rocked counterclockwise on their pivot shaft 173, which in turn rocks the twoarmed lever 176 clockwise on its pivot shaft 177 to engage the indexing end of lever 179 with ratchet wheel 180.

In vertical alignment for cooperation at one end with the four cams 181-184 are four whiietree levers 185-188 which are each pivoted at 189 to the vertical arms of corresponding bell crank levers 190 fulcrumed upon shaft 202. The other end of said whifiietree levers are bifurcated for receiving a shaft 194 carried by a pair of spaced bell cranks 195. The bell cranks 195 are pivotally mounted upon a shaft 196 extending inwardly from the right-hand side frame and carry a second shaft 197 which actuates a notched cut-off slide 198 for controlling tag cut-off punches 199 as will presently be explained and as more fully set forth in the said Reissue Patent 24,557.

Fast upon the shaft of dial 165 is a four-sided cam 200 having four staggered cam faces 201 spaced apart which are beneath and in vertical alignment with the bell cranks 190-193 respectively. The construction is such that when single part tags are desired, dial is set at the number one position, when two part tags are desired, dial 165 is set at the number two position, and so on. To illustrate, when dial 165 is set at the number one position the cam surface 201 in alignment with bell crank 190 rocks said bell crank clockwise (FIG. 6) on its pivot shaft 202 which in turn raises the toothed end of lever into operative engagement with one of the twelve notches in cam 181. It will now be clear that each time the toothed end of lever 185 passes from one notch in cam 181, to the next notch, lever 185 will be rocked upon pivot 189 and in turn will rock bell cranks y195 counterclockwise to shift the notched cut-off slide 198. Whenever the notches 203 in slide 198 are moved out of registration with the cut-off punches 199, as shown in FIG. 6, a complete tag is severed from the web being fed into the right-hand side of the machine. The punches 199 operate to remove the lands t (FIG. l), leaving notches 106 in the severed tag parts.

When two-part or double-width tags T', such as shown in FIG. 1, are fed into the machine the dial 165 is set at the number two position so that the related cam surface 201 is brought into alignment with the bell crank 191 for activating the lever 186 related to the cam 182 having six notches. Thus the notched cut-olf slide 198 in this instance is operated only during every second or alternate machine cycles of operations.

On the other hand if it is desired that tags T' are to be folded, as pairs in book form, the dial 165 is set at the number four position and bell crank 193 in this case activates the lever 188 which is related to the cam 184 having only four notches, whereby cut-olf slide 198 now is operated only during every fourth cycle of machine operations.

The indexing lever 179, previously referred to, is elevated and -lowered for each revolution of main shaft 97 by cam 204 fast on the main shaft 97 'and a roller 205 on one end of a pivoted lever 206, as clearly illustrated in FIG. 6.

It is desirable to stop feeding the continuous web of tags when all of the counter dials 166 reach their zero or home position. This is accomplished by lifting the entering end of the continuous tag web out of the path of the teeth 101-102 of pawls 100 on the feed bars 113-114, earlier described. It is recalled that the entering end of the tag web passes between the throat guide plates 8 and 10 (FIGS. 4 and 5), and that plate 8 with lever 209 is held in its lowered position by latch means 210 having link connection 211 with a bell crank lever 212. Also, that plate 10 is spring held downwardly against the finger of lever 209. The bell crank 212 has an offset arm 213 (FIG. 6) in vertical alignment with the top end of counting finger 179. It will be remembered that when any counter dial 166 is away from zero or home position, linger 179 is engaged with ratchet 180, and when said lever is thus engaged with said ratchet, it will clear the arm 213 during its upward or indexing stroke. However, as soon as lall of the dials 166 are normalized or reach their zero home position, pin 178 -will act to disengage lever 179 from ratchet 180 and move said lever beneath arm 213, so that upon its next upward or feeding stroke, it will strike arm 213 thereby rocking bell crank 212 counterclockwise on its pivot 177. This movement of bell crank 212, through link 211, rocks latch 210 counterclockwise on its pivot, to release lever 209, whereupon it is elevated by a spring 214. This elevating or upward movement of lever 209, causes the linger 15 thereof to rock the plate 10 (FIGS. 4 and 5) upwardly thereby lifting the entering end of the continuous web of tags T (FIG. l), free of the teeth 101-102 on the right hand pair of feed pawls 100 on bars 113 and 114.

It has been previously explained that whenever any of the counter dials 166 (FIG. 6) are manually moved away from their home or zero position, lever 179 is engaged with ratchet wheel 180 to rotate the cams 181-184 respectively. The means for returning the dials to zero position, digit by digit, will now be described in connection with FIG. 6.

The construction of this mechanism is such that the counter dials are actuated only upon movement of the bell cranks 195 and cut-olf slide 198. Thus, if dial 165 is set for a single part tag, the counter and cut-off slide will be operated once for every machine cycle, but when dial 165 is set at the number two position for a two-part tag, the counter and cut-oli slide will be operated only once for every two machine cycles and so forth. In this way the counter can be set for a definite predetermined number of tags regardless of whether they are to be one, two, three or four part tags according to the setting of dial 165.

The counter shown in the present embodiment includes three counter dials 166. These dials will be considered as the units, tens and hundreds positions. For each dial 166 there is a feed pawl 216 to feed its associated ratchet 167. The pawls 216 are pivotally mounted upon a shaft 217 carried by a U-shaped lever 218, and the feeding end of each pawl is held in engagement with its ratchet 167, by a spring 219, one end of which is anchored to the lower end of the pawl and the other end to a rod 220 carried by the lever 218. The U-shaped lever 218 is pivotally supported by an elongated shaft 221 projecting inwardly from the right-hand side plate. An adjustable link 222 is pivotally connected at its upper end to arm 174 and at its lower end to shaft 197 carried by the bell cranks 195. A second link 223 is connected between the shaft 194 and rod 220. Each ratchet 167 has a spring pressed detent pawl 224 which serves to hold the counter dials 166 against any retrograde movement between feeding strokes of the pawls 216 and to the position to which they are manually set for counting purposes.

When any dial 166 is moved out of zero position, link 222 will act to rock bell cranks 195 counterclockwise on their pivot shaft 196 to position the notches 203 of cuto slide 198 above the cut-olf punches 199. Thus said punches are disabled until the slide is again moved by action of one of the bell cranks 190-193 according to the setting of dial 165.

It will now be clear that the counter dials are returned toward their zero or home position one digit each time the cut-off slide 198 is moved to its cut-olf position by one of the levers 18S-188 respectively through the bell cranks 195.

From the above description it will be obvious that when it is desired to have tags punched and printed, at suitable stations spaced along the feed slides 113-114, the operator sets the counter dials 166 to the desired number of tags required, which automatically engages the feed lever 179 with ratchet 180 as previously explained. Lever 209 is then lowered by depression of iingerpiece 215 so that plates 8 and 10 being lowered therewith will act to bring the inserted tag web T' in vertical alignment with the teeth 101, 102 of the feed pawls 100 on the slides 113, 114 respectively.

For single part tags T the dial 165 is set to position one and the starting button 161 is depressed to engage clutch 159. During continued machine cycles of operation the successive feed notches 112 at the separating line between each of the tags will be engaged by the forward teeth 101 of pawls 100 in the inward movement of the slides 113, 114 and are thereafter fed leftwardly (FIG. l) during each transverse operation of said slides, until the counter dials reach their zero or home position, at which time the tag feeding operation is stopped as heretofore explained.

On the other hand when it is desired to use double width tags on the order of tags T the dial 16S is set to the position two, and it will now be clear that the counter and cut-olf mechanisms operate only once for every second machine cycle while the feed slides 113, 114 operate for every machine cycle. It will also be noted that following the outward and rearward movement, to the right in FIG. l, of slides 113, 114 the teeth 101 of pawls are now adjacent the unbroken edge of the tag T' while the teeth 102 will be opposite the feed notches therein. Thus during the subsequent inward movement of the described slide operations the forward teeth 101 will engage the continuous edge of the tags and rock the teeth 102 into engagement with the related feed notches, and thereafter upon a leftward restoring operation of the slides 113, 114 teeth 102 will advance the corresponding tag one-half a width thereof. In the next subsequent machine cycle of operation the operation is similar except that now the rearward teeth 102 are moved opposite the continuous edge of the tags and the forward teeth 102 will be opposite the feed notches in the tag for engagement therewith to complete the full lwidth movement of the tags.

While I have described and illustrated one specilic embodiment of my invention, it will be clear that variations of the details of construction which are specifically illustrated and described may be resorted to without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention.

The invention claimed is:

1. In an apparatus of the class described for feeding single sheets or web sheets successively past an information processing station, the combination comprising:

sheet feeding means including a member having a feed stroke movement;

sheet engaging means spaced thereon according to said feed stroke and disposed for independent movement substantially transversely thereof;

said sheet engaging means including at least one member carrying a pair of spaced feed elements adapted each for either cooperation with the feed opening as spaced in a sheet or engagement with a solid edge portion of the sheet, and when engaging the solid edge portion of the sheet for movement in a predetermined direction to bring the other feed element into a position to cooperate with a feed opening; and

said sheet engaging means engageable thereby withfassociated feed openings as spaced in a sheet in accordance with alternate feed strokes of said sheet feeding means for advancing a sheet during each operation of the sheet feeding means.

2. The invention according to claim 1; and

in which said element comprises a rock member pivotally mounted upon the said sheet feeding member.

3. The invention according to claim 2; and

means biasing said rock member so that a given one only of said spaced elements during feed operations will engage successive feed openings as spaced in a sheet in accordance with the feed stroke movement of said sheet feeding member, whereby to advance the sheet during each successive operation thereof.

4. The invention according to claim 3; and

having duplicate feed means transversely spaced from the first said sheet feeding means for similarly providing sheet feeding operation to the opposite edge thereof.

5. The invention according to claim 4; and

wherein both said sheet feeding means have a reciprocatory feed movement in common and are movable away from and toward each other relative to each feed cycle of operation whereby to effect the said engagement of the spaced feed elements with a sheet.

6. The invention according to claim 2; and having a plurality of said pivoted rock members spaced longitudinally along said sheet feeding members, whereby to further advance any severed sheets.

7. The invention according to claim 4; and means operable to lift an incoming sheet from engagement with said pairs of spaced sheet engaging elements of said rock members whereby to disable sheet feeding operations.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,021,038 1l/l935 West 83-278 X 2,708,873 5/1955 Braun lOl-19 FRANK T. YOST, Primary Examiner U.S. Cl. X.R. 83--278 

